What's up brand builders Stephen Houraghan here at BrandMasterAcademy.com and in this video
you're going to learn seven reasons to invest in brand strategy ahead of design and marketing
so you can articulate the importance of this critical task
and help your clients ceos or other stakeholders to understand too
now if you're new to the channel and you want to build brands that go beyond the visuals using
strategy psychology and creative thinking then you're in the right place hit that subscribe
button and the notification bell if you want to fast track your results make sure you grab the
program strategy blueprint it's a free download the link is in the description now when i first
began to sell strategy the biggest challenge that i found for me anyway was pivoting the
conversation from design to strategy most of my prospects came to me looking for design work
and i had broader services i was selling brand strategy and i had to pivot that conversation
so i had to learn how to articulate the importance of brand strategy now today
brand strategy is not as foreign a concept as it used to be because you do have entrepreneurial
influencers the likes of gary vee seth god and marty newmar all talking about the importance
of brand strategy but for professional brand builders selling strategy services who also
offer design services that pivoting of that conversation is still a big challenge and i was
reminded that the other day when i had a question from one of my followers on youtube nerali now
narali asked me for a company who hasn't even yet launched should they focus on brand strategy or
should brand strategy be their number one priority at this early stage now i'm not
sure if narali was asking for her own brand or considering a conversation that you might have
with a client but it's clear that that is still a challenge today pivoting that conversation from
design or marketing to brand strategy is still a big challenge so i want to give you seven reasons
that you can use to articulate the importance of brand strategy to your clients ahead of design
and marketing so you can show them the past so you can give them those reasons as to why they
should invest in brand strategy reason number one brand strategy defines the audience now i know
that there are some freelance designers and some marketing agencies who do offer audience research
services but the audience research that you would typically do within a brand strategy goes a lot
more detailed it really goes into exactly who the person is and considers the objectives that
they're trying to meet the outcomes that they're trying to achieve and all of the challenges
that stand in their way of achieving those objectives and how those challenges make them
feel emotionally and it's through that emotion that a brand can really dig deep into what it is
their audience is looking for and how they're going to resonate with that person on an emotional
level reason number two brand strategy defines the position now neither design or marketing defines
the position that the brand will take in the market and this is the cornerstone to the brand
strategy you need to give your audience a reason as to why they should turn towards your brand
and how you're going to fit into their lives what value you're going to bring and what role you're
going to play in their lives if you don't give them that reason then they have no reason to turn
towards your brand now everything else within the brand is built from this position so it
is a critical critical task in any brand building exercise to define that position so that is a real
core reason as to why somebody needs to invest in brand strategy before designing a brand identity
or before going out to market their business reason number three brand strategy defines the
brand persona now we don't connect with features or benefits we don't make decisions based on
features or benefits we make decisions based on emotion and that's been proven by science that is
how we make decisions we justify with logic and we make decisions based on emotion and a number
one way that we connect with people or even with other things is through the characteristics that
we see and modern brands understand the importance of brand personality today you can't just go out
and communicate like a corporate entity that's out there to take money you need to connect with
your audience on a human level through human characteristics and a human brand persona
reason number four brand strategy defines the message now a lot of business owners believe that
their website copy is their brand message but it's not your website copy leverages your brand message
but your brand message is crafted within your brand strategy and in order to craft your brand
message you need to understand the image that you want to place in the mind of your audience as to
what your brand should mean and only then can you craft a brand message that will help to influence
that image in the mind of the audience so defining your brand message is a really important task of
the brand strategy and that happens long before any website copy is put together
reason number five brand strategy guides the design now the brand identity system has a very
important task and that is to engage the audience visually and to set the tone for what the brand
should mean and it does that through communicating characteristics visually now those characteristics
are defined within the brand strategy and that is based on the position that the brand wants to own
in the mind of the audience and how it wants to communicate how it wants to resonate and what kind
of image the brand should have in the mind of that audience so the key here is characteristics what
characteristics are we going to leave in the mind of the audience and that is done visually through
the brand identity without the brand strategy there is no direction there are no characteristics
to set in the mind of the audience and therefore there is no foundation to that design reason
number six brand strategy informs marketing now a marketing strategy is a collection of marketing
tactics all working together as a cohesive system and even if a business has a cohesive marketing
strategy in place without the elements that i've described earlier it doesn't have that direction
it doesn't have that clearly defined audience it doesn't have the position that it's going
to own in the mind of the audience and it doesn't have that personality or those key messages that
they're going to use to influence that audience so therefore any marketing without brand strategy as
a direction is a waste of money reason number seven brand strategy guides long-term success
now within the brand strategy development process you have your internal brand and that's where
the internal belief system is built out within the brand now
although there are a lot of templates out there for brands to go and do this early on and there
are a lot of strategies that are built on such templates this is a really important element
of the brand itself and the brand strategy when making strategic decisions when the brand knows
why it's there what purpose it exists for who it exists for and where it's going what kind
of vision it has where it's going to be in the future what that future brand looks like then
strategic decision making becomes a lot easier so having this fundamental compass in place is
really important for the brand leadership team to make those strategic decisions long term now
if you've gotten to this part of the video chances are you don't need convincing as to the importance
of brand strategy you already know or at least by the end of this video i hope you know the
importance or i hope you understand the importance of brand strategy but chances are these reasons
will come into effect when you have conversations with other people when you have conversations
with ceos or stakeholders or business leaders who are considering their own brand who are
considering where to invest budget whether it should be in a brand identity and a website or
some facebook ads and the topic of brand strategy comes up and pivoting that conversation and
articulating the importance of brand strategy is a really difficult task so hopefully with this video
you now have seven reasons that you can give to clearly articulate the value of brand strategy
and that will influence the mind of the person that you're sitting opposite as to what they need
to do to build a successful brand now if you're considering offering brand strategy services as a
brand strategist and you're wondering what skills or traits that you need to develop or upscale into
in order to be a successful brand strategist well this video will give you 12 that will show
you exactly how to do that until next time brian like a master and i'll see you in the next video